Woman forced to abort at nine months because her husband already had a child

Lili Zeng underwent induced labour, and a lethal injection was made on the child's skull. In spite of all this, he was born alive, only to die in his mother's arms. The woman's husband forced the operation on her after he left her. He already had a son from a previous marriage. Women's Rights Without Frontiers slams what happened.

Beijing (AsiaNews)
- A Chinese woman was forced to abort in the ninth month of her pregnancy
because of her former husband's vindictiveness. In her own words, she was treated
"as if I were a pig waiting to be slaughtered". In the end, she watched her child
terminated, dying in her arms after birth.

This is the horrific
story of Lili Zeng, a young mother from Xinfeng County (in the rich southern
province of Guangdong); just another victim of China's one-child policy.

Her experience is
told by Women's Rights Without Frontiers, a non-governmental organisation
led by Reggie Littlejohn who has been fighting to save innocent lives in China for
years.

Zeng's tragedy began
in 2011. When she became pregnant, her husband left her. Having had another son
from his first wife, he signed a consent form to force an abortion on his current
wife.

Under Chinese
law, abortion may be imposed by force if one spouse does not want to have
children. What is more, already having a child is sufficient ground to stop a
pregnancy.

For Chinese authorities,
the husband's desertion and Zeng's opposition were not enough to stop them.

For the woman,
her husband's consent to the abortion was due to his first wife's
vindictiveness. In the end, red tape delayed everything until the ninth month,
when Zeng was forcibly confined to a hospital for the abortion.

At such
a late date, this kind of operation is a very risky, painful and completely
unjustified. Zeng said she felt "as if I were a pig waiting to be slaughtered."

Despite
the lethal injection in the skull and the labour pains caused by drugs, the
child was born alive but died in his mother's arms shortly after.

Zeng said
that she has attempted suicide three times after her release from hospital. Fortunately,
they failed each time. Now she wants justice and is going through official
channels like her local of Family Planning Office.

"If you
want to blame someone, please blame the [One-Child] Policy, or your husband,"
said one of the officials after being solicited extensively for an explanation.

"If he
had not agreed to sign the form, no doctor would have dared to inject the
induced labour needle into your body. Lili Zeng . . . if you continue to send
text messages or call to berate me, I will definitely find someone to deal with
you," he told her.

For Reggie
Littlejohn, "Our hearts break for Ms Zeng [. . .]. Her experience dramatically demonstrates the
connection between forced abortion and China's astronomical female suicide
rate: 590 women a day end their lives in
China.

Her situation "shows that-even
when a woman is pregnant with her first child-if it is her husband's second
child, she can be forcibly aborted. We
strongly condemn forced abortion under China's One Child Policy and demand that
the Chinese government put a stop to these atrocities immediately."

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Woman forced to abort at nine months because her husband already had a child East Asia China Lili Zeng underwent induced labour, and a lethal injection was made on the child's skull. In spite of all this, he was born alive, only to die in his mother's arms. The woman's husband forced the operation on her after he left her. He already had a son from a previous marriage. Women's Rights Without Frontiers slams what happened.

21/09/2013 ITALY - USA - CHINAReggie Littlejohn: The One-Child Law, the Party’s tool to stay in powerThe American activist founder of Women 's Rights Without Frontiers, tells AsiaNews the story of how her battle against China’s family planning policies begun, her ongoing fight to stop forced abortions and forced sterilizations . Because of birth control, Littlejohn explains, "the Chinese local system is in danger of collapse ."

13/02/2013 CHINAFor one Chinese mother, the one child policy is a horror that must endThe story of Cao Ruyi and her family, persecuted by the government for having a second child, is told by the president of the association that helped them escape and save their child from a planned forced abortion. China's government has never stopped its family planning policy, which in 30 years has imposed with violence 275 million abortions.

11/09/2013 CHINAWoman who complained about graft is forced to abort, then arrestedLi Fengfei was forced to abort at 18 weeks in the city of Bijie. Her son died and her life was in danger for about a month. Just out of the hospital, she was arrested by Public Security. A Christian lawyer has taken up her case, noting that it all started after she refused to falsify some documents to steal money from the state.

25/06/2013 CHINAChina's one child policy also brings sexual slavery
The US State Department's report on human trafficking downgrades Beijing to 'Tier 3' status for failing to fully comply with minimum standards and not making significant efforts to limit human trafficking and sexual slavery. Forced abortions and sterilisations explain the trend in a country where millions of men cannot find a bride. Women's Rights Without Frontiers appeals to Obama and Xi Jinping.

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